Symposium

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Former Students Recall 1968 Protests That Shut Down Columbia

Part of some estimated 300 students at Columbia University gather around Hamilton Hall on the campus in New York. Fifty years ago students occupied five buildings at the university and shut down the Ivy League campus in a protest over the school's ties to a military think tank and what protesters saw as racism toward Columbia's Harlem neighbors. More than 700 protesters were arrested and more than 130 were injured when police retook the occupied buildings, during what was part of a year of global turmoil.

NEW YORK (AP) — Fifty years ago Monday, Columbia University students angry about racism and the Vietnam War began a rebellion that fed a sense the country was in turmoil. Starting at noon on April 23, 1968, student militants occupied Hamilton Hall, the main classroom building, and took a dean hostage for 24 hours. They stormed into the office of the university's president, ransacked files and smoked his cigars.

Over the next few days, hundreds of students would seize a total of five campus buildings. The occupation attracted global attention. Black militant leaders Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown visited the protesters. China's Chairman Mao Zedong sent a telegram.

Then, early on April 30, a thousand police officers swept in and cleared out the rebels. "In the club swinging, fist fighting, pushing and kneeing that marked the violent subjugation," The Associated Press reported at the time. One hundred students and 15 police officers were injured. Police made 700 arrests.

The protests were part of a year of global tumult that included Vietnam's Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and mass demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

As Columbia prepares to observe the anniversary, some people who lived through the occupations see parallels with today's young activists, such as survivors of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

"When Parkland happened and I saw particularly the young women speaking angrily and passionately about what had happened and what had to change, I just heard my own voice," said Nancy Biberman, who was a student at Barnard, the women's college affiliated with Columbia.

Recollections of others who were there: A RACIAL DIVIDE Two grievances sparked the protests: Columbia's ties to the Institute for Defense Analyses, a weapons research outfit, and a university plan to build a gym in a city park that would have separate doors for Columbia students and for the surrounding African-American community.

Black and white students began protesting together. But soon, black leaders at Hamilton Hall asked their white counterparts to leave and occupy their own building. Raymond Brown, a leader of the Students' Afro-American Society, said the black students had grown weary of their white counterparts' revolutionary rhetoric.

"We were aware from day one that this was a demonstration and not a revolution," said Brown, now a lawyer. Carolyn Eisenberg, then a graduate student in history, was among the white protesters asked to leave.

"I think people were kind of shocked and disoriented," Eisenberg said. "The moment when black students said 'We want you guys to leave' didn't feel that great. But the animus toward Columbia University was so dominant that that kind of took over."

DISSENT AT THE BARRICADES

Karla Spurlock-Evans, then a freshman at Barnard, went to Hamilton Hall to hear a band called the Soul Syndicate and stayed for the occupation. "Being in that building, sensing the power of what can come when people who have a common goal that is righteous come together with goodwill and good intentions and love showed me that real change can be accomplished," said Spurlock-Evans, now dean of multicultural affairs at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

But support for the occupiers wasn't universal. Vaud Massarsky was a leader of a student group opposed to the protests called the Majority Coalition. "The press has ignored the great apathetic mass that was there to get a degree," said Massarsky, now a management consultant and author of detective stories.

The Majority Coalition tried to lay siege to Low Library by forming a cordon around it, preventing food deliveries. But even Massarsky was shocked by the violence of the police response. "On all sides, we were horrified," he said.

REVOLT PUT DOWN

Hilton Obenzinger, who was among the students occupying the library, remembers standing on the ledge that surrounds the building and catching food that supporters threw. "We all kind of bonded together into what we called the Low Library Commune," said Obenzinger, now a writer and lecturer at Stanford University.

Obenzinger said the occupiers tried to keep the building clean as they prepared to meet police. The black students in Hamilton were arrested peacefully and loaded into vans. But at the other buildings, police wielded batons and flashlights.

"I have a very vivid memory of one cop sauntering up to one of the women and battering her head," Obenzinger said. "He just kept slamming into her. Everybody got beat up, some much worse than others."

AFTERMATH

The school reopened in May. "The consequences for most people were nil. A few people were suspended, not many," said Michael Rosenthal, a former English Department instructor. Carol Berkin, a doctoral student, was horrified when her oral exams were postponed but then joined the protests.

When her exams finally took place, her academic adviser Richard Morris, a fierce opponent of the protests, was there to grill her. So was historian James Shenton, a protest supporter with his arm in a cast thanks to the police.

The two professors glared at each other. "I don't think they even noticed what I had to say," said Berkin, now a college professor. Grayson Kirk, then Columbia's president, died in 1997. A handful of the Columbia radicals later joined the militant Weathermen faction. One died in an explosion at a bomb-making den. Mark Rudd, the most visible leader of the 1968 protests, went underground.

Rudd, now living in New Mexico, declined to be interviewed.

student protester at Columbia University is forcibly removed from the campus by plainclothes New York City police after they entered buildings occupied by the students, and ejected those participating in the sit-ins. Fifty years ago, more than 700 protesters were arrested and more than 130 were injured when police retook the occupied buildings, during what was part of a year of global turmoil.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: THE AMBROSE EHIRIM-CHIKA UNIGWE INTERVIEW

Every writer has to be able to live in the head of her characters. I had to make myself a blank blackboard for the characters to inscribe their lives on me. I had to wipe off that board every time a new character had to be created and totally surrender myself to that new character.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: INTERVIEW: THE SYLVESTER MENSAH STORY

The idea of writing a book had always engaged my thoughts based on reflections and the desire to share my experiences. The motivation was however triggered after reading the book of a gentleman l consider the busiest in Ghana, H. E. John Dramani Mahama

FROM THE ARCHIVES: INTERVIEW: DR. APOLLOS NWAUWA

Contrary to what many think, the Igbo Diaspora is not really a homogenous, coherent group. Like other ethnic nationalities in the USA, the Igbo Diaspora consists of peoples from all walks of life separated by everything and only united by the fact that they are all Igbo. Serious social class disparity exists between them; therefore, presenting a united front in influencing or engineering actions at home continues to be a challenge.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: INTERVIEW: OZO'S KENI SAINT GEORGE

It was indeed a very boisterous, purpose driven, well-to-do Royal family. I come from a lineage of Royals and a well groomed family unit. My Father, Chief George Ozuloke, was a Court Judge for all of 18 years. He was both a Christian and Animist. He had 7 wives of which my mother was the first. I went to St. Martins Primary School and later to a wonderful School – Abbot Secondary Grammar School in Ihiala, my town. I even did a stint in Ihiala Seminary trying to be a Catholic Priest

FROM THE ARCHIVES: INTERVIEW: JULIUS KPADUWA

The problems that confront Imo State are really not unique. It is the same problem that confronts almost every state in Nigeria, and it's one of economic development. The primary thing or my clear vision for the people of Imo State will be getting all the able-bodied men and women back to work, so that we can begin to have the quality of life that has so far eluded the people of Imo State.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: THE OTOKOTO SAGA INTERVIEW

Earlier this year, in January, it was reported in the country’s dailies that your father and six others had been condemned to death. Those condemned with your father were: Alban Ajaegbu, Sampson Nnamito, Ebenezer Egwuekwe, Rufus Anyanwu, Lawrence Eboh, and Chief Leonard Unogu. How is your dad related to the names I have mentioned?

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Where We Met

But seeing a Nigeria headline on my screen it then occurred to him I must either be a Nigerian or perhaps a curious minded fellow who is reading to find out about the notorious Boko Haram, if they have captured more of their victims, or if there's an ongoing battle between the insurgents and the nation's security forces. Elevating my head up and starring at each other, I told him I was Igbo

NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

Search This Blog

About Me

Ambrose Ehirim is a blogger, a writer, a photo-journalist, a volunteer and teacher. He has published articles and essays in African Times, African Watch, Pace News, Los Angeles Weekly, Life & Time Magazine, Kilima, American Chronicle, Long Beach Sentinel, Reuters and many other publications. He was former editor of New Life and West Coast Bureau Chief at the BNW Magazine. An Anti-Igbo Pogrom scholar and researcher, and currently working on and researching the 'Eastside Groups and Bands' Vintage Years.'

Sovereign National Conference: A Symposium

Aburi Accord Plays On

Click On Image To Read Full Story

2015: Leadership and Sins of Nd'Igbo

Click on image to read full story and analysis

Nchamere Nd'Igbo: Evidence of Anti-Igbo Pogrom

Obafemi Awolowo's orchestrated "Economic Blockade" denies food and medicine to Children of Biafra during Yakubu Gowon's-led genocidal campaign against the Igbo Nation. CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW ALL PICTURES

West African Documentary

The building of a tata. The mason tended by his apprentice, builds the tata, layer by layer. The apprentice shapes the balls of mud which he passes to the mason....Click on the image to view all pictures and related stories

Facts and Logic Blogs

Twitter Updates

Inside Nigeria's Fourth Republic: Nothing But A Messy 14 Years

In the fourteen years of said democracy, things that never happened in the past - the way it had now turned out - started happening at an alarming rate and spooky by its nature.......Click on image to read full story

Google+ Followers

California gasoline prices set to plunge as spike ends

Click on image to read story

The Future of the Alien Tort Statute, Take II: The U.S. Supreme Court Hears New Arguments on Extrat

Translate

Blog Archive

Labels

Total Pageviews

Trump Lawyer Arranged $130,000 Payment for Adult-Film Star

Nigerian couple meet on Facebook and marry one week later

CNN

2nd Annual African Day Fest In Little Rock, Arkansas

Photo by Thomas Metthe Denisha Cleaves (right) of Memphis and Shakeenah Kadem of Fort Smith perform Saturday during the second annual Africa Day Fest in Little Rock. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/galleries.

The Small Island Paradise

People enjoy a New Year’s day swim in São Tomé city on Jan. 1, 2018. Tourists to São Tomé and Principe, a scattering of islands off the coast of western equatorial Africa that once served the slave and sugar trades of Portuguese colonial rulers, are rare. Image: Ruth McDowall/AFP/Getty

A Night Of Music And Dance

(AFRICA DIASPORA)--Rhythms of Kalahari, a dance troupe from Bostwana, perform a traditional celebration dance at the African Students Association Banquet in the Student Union Theater, Missouri State University, Springfield, April 20, 2018 in a Night of Music and Dance. Image: Bradley Balsters, The Standard

Battle to save elephants in Africa gaining some ground

In this photo taken Friday, March 23, 2018, wildlife veterinarian Ernest Mjingo, center, runs as an elephant starts to charge toward him after being darted with a tranquilizer during an operation to attach GPS tracking collars, near Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. The battle to save Africa’s elephants appears to be gaining momentum in Mikumi, where killings are declining and some populations are starting to grow again. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)